Water soaked, now almost no compression ??

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Yes boys and girls, I swamped her today a little. She died by herself while I was still trying to get out of the 4 foot hole. I was in a 1 foot deep water filled rut and went to put my foot down. Turns out it was a clay hole about 4 feet deep. She layed down on her side barely breathing and I couldnt get to the kill switch in time. She was only idling then died. I removed the spark plug and kicked her over a few times, drained the carb and checked the oil was still clear. She woudlnt start. So now I have taken her home and let her drain completely of oil and gas. Funny thing was, when I was trying to kick her over in the bush, she felt almost lifeless(no compression).

I put a new plug, fresh gas and oil, but she still feels compressionless. Maybe the cylinder got scored and won't start??

I'll have to dig out my comp. tester and check it. Maybe a valve got stuck as the exhaust was also full of water.

Has this ever happen to anyone else?? Sound familiar ??

Please let me know what you all tried before I start diggin into the motor !!

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Going through exactly the same thing right now I have narowed it down to the head gasket (I hope) all valves and piston are good and the head gasket looked bad All I need is the head bolt tquork and I can put back together any help would be nice then I can tell you if that might be your proublem

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What bike is it?, 250 or 400?.If you feel that the cylinder was scored,dont try to bump start it untill your sure its not,to not risk munging it up some more.Once youve checked it out,have a buddy tow you behind a pick up truck,very carefully on a abandoned road and try to bump start it,this happened with my xl600,minus the tip over,I got it stuck so bad,I had to leave it sitting in a water hole and come back with some buddys after ward it wouldnt crank,after drying and changing fluids,we towed it and it lit off,after that it was back to normal.

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Last time I did this to one of mine, it took 6 oil changes before the oil came out clear, not milky. That was a wet sump bike, however (KTM 400EXC) and an XR may not need so many changes. But if your oil is milky when you pull the dipstick after running it you've got water in the oil. Since it's an aircooled bike, the oil may get hot enough to boil off the water, but I'd change it again anyway if it's milky. At the very least, you got water in the crankcase through the breather when you submarined the bike, and you probably haven't gotten it all out when you drained it.

If you need to drain and refill more than once, Rotella 15W40 diesel oil is cheap at Walmart, and works great.

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did the same thing to my bike- after I got it home I drained the oil for a week including taking out the screen in the frame tube.still has white foam on dipstickk and water droplets- took off oil fill cap and let the bike run for 20 minutes. no more milky white junk and no more water drops on dipstick

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You are lucky!! When my son drowned my XR250, it was running and injested water into the cylinder. After a lot of work, he got it to start (with all the water in the crankcase) and limped back to the truck.

Basically ate the piston rings. So new piston and rings and cylinder bore and dismantling of the carb for cleaning was the real damage.

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D1k, sounds like your bike did not suck water into the cylinder on a compression stroke. If the motor stopped abruptly with a sould like a hammer hitting an anvil, then the bike sucked water. This is very hard on the motor. Sounds like yours stalled due to intake blockage.